


welcome home

by sophia_m



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Donald Ressler, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Protective Raymond Reddington, Suffering Donald Ressler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophia_m/pseuds/sophia_m
Summary: Neither could tell you how it happened. If it was all at once or throughout time, over months and long hours spent working together. But it happened and each could tell you the point they realized.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen & Donald Ressler, Elizabeth Keen & Raymond Reddington, Raymond Reddington/Donald Ressler
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	1. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got bored during an almost six hour car ride but didn't want to read and hadn't downloaded anything on Netflix to watch so this is what i did.

It started on a Friday night.

Red had sent Dembe to visit his family and as such was alone in his place when a knock at the door drew his attention away from the book in his hands. Carefully marking his place, he set it to the side and cautiously approached the door. The only person who he could think it would be was Liz but she was out of the city, away with Agnes and Tom.

Opening the door, Red was surprised to find himself staring at Agent Ressler whose eyes are focused on the doormat bearing the words 'welcome'.

"It was a gift from Agent Keen," Red says, his lips twitching into a brief smile.

Ressler tilts his chin up, looking at the older man with an emptiness in his eyes that Red can't recall seeing since he lost Audrey for the second and last time.

Straightening up, Red almost takes a step forward but Ressler seems to flinch back which makes Red freeze. "Is everything alright Agent Ressler?"

"I just - I can't-" Ressler trails off but the unspoken words hang in the air.

I can't be alone.

Red steps to the side, allowing Ressler to cross the threshold and collapse onto the couch, rubbing a hand over his face. In the light from his lamp, Red can see Ressler's hands. They’re trembling. A raw pink from recently being scrubbed clean, but with a light red stain still outlining his nails and caught under them.

Sitting across from him, Red folds his hands in his lap. "What was the case?"

Ressler looks up from him, his eyes still hollow and his face grim. "Trafficking children. When we got to the warehouse, there was a girl, not even a teenager. They had shot her, left her as a warning to us about what they would do to the others."

Ressler pauses for a moment, swallowing dryly.

"I couldn't save her." His voice is barely above a whisper but Red heard him perfectly clear. "There was nothing I could do except hold her and lie. I told her she was going to be okay, that we were going to save her. She was 11, born in Frankfurt, wanted to be a veterinarian, has an older sister named Annalise. Her name was Catherine and I couldn't save her." There's a soft sob that follows Ressler's words, half caught in his throat.

"Did you save the others?" Red asks. Ressler nods which prompts, Red to stand to his feet. There's a hand on the agent's shoulder. "Then you still did a good job. You managed to save the other children and reunite them with their parents; be proud of that. Now stay here and I'll make you some tea."

Ressler doesn't move or say anything. He just watches as Red walks into the adjacent kitchen and listens to the sound of water filling a kettle. He's faintly aware of Red asking him what tea he prefers but he can't find his words. A few minutes later, Red reemerges with a steaming mug.

Handing it to Ressler, Red watches as he inhales quietly, his eyes fluttering close for a moment. "It's passionflower tea, it should help you to relax."

Ressler nods his thanks before taking a sip. There's a faint taste of lemon and honey. It warms his throat. Red watches him drink, satisfied when the man before him slowly seems to sink into the couch.

They don’t talk that night. Ressler drinks tea under Red’s supervision and gradually his hands stop shaking. He leaves at 3, a thermos of tea in his hands.

It becomes routine for them. After not hearing from him for a while or after a difficult case, Red can find Ressler at his door. Occasionally, bearing a gift in his arms.

He finds himself enjoying their late-night get-togethers. And then they stop. And Ressler disappears from his life. An undercover mission to catch a suspected terrorist gone bad. Ressler's cover blown due to a leak; he was gone before an extraction team could even be put together. No one knew anything, not even Red, which was a rarity for him.

The days turned into weeks and slowly the weeks turned into months. People were searching for him but they got nowhere even after the terrorist he had been tracking was caught and interrogated. Red has his people on it as well but the progress they manage to make was almost as minimal as Cooper's and the FBI's.

Day 34 after Ressler’s kidnapped and day 34 of no progress having been made, Red remembers the day, so many months ago, when he gave Ressler’s an emergency blood transfusion and wonders if Ressler’s remember that. Dembe has to take the bottle of whiskey from his hands to get him to stop.

He thinks back to the first night Ressler appears on his doorstep and wonders why Ressler came to him and why he let the younger man inside. He realizes that as the weeks went by and Ressler’s visits occurred more often, he would find himself waiting for the soft knock, water already boiling in the kitchen and the oven reheating food he thought Ressler would appreciate.

The first time he dreamed of Ressler was that night. He can’t recall the entire dream but snippets, and those snippets are all that matter. When he wakes, he wonders if Ressler’s hair would feel the same in real life and if his lips are as soft as they felt in his dream.

Dembe gives Red a brief once-over during breakfast as he sets a cup of coffee in front of him. “We’ll get him back.”

Red doesn’t give him a response.

***

Sometimes Ressler remembers that at one point Red's blood had coursed through him and when he did so, he wondered if Red ever thought of it as well.

He wonders how many days he had been trapped in that cell, chained to the ground.

He's later told it was 146 days.

His nightmares outnumber his dreams but the dreams he does manage to have are always the same. They start as his usual nights with Red do. Pleasantries exchanged and a cup of tea. It’s always a new tea and it always becomes Ressler’s new favourite.

They eat and their talks turn to the case they’re working or recently worked and then to Ressler’s life with Reddington providing an appropriate and sometimes funny anecdote when it calls for it. But then it changes from reality. Reddington brings him out to the balcony, beneath the night sky and points out a different constellation, telling him the story behind its name. Ressler’s the one who kisses him first, cupping the back of Red’s neck to tilt his head back and deepen the kiss. Red always kiss him back before leading him to the bedroom.

Ressler wakes up before he can learn what would happen.

He wonders how Reddington would react if he tried that in real life.

He thinks Red would kill him.

When he's finally rescued, he tries not to cry as he holds his injured arm to his chest. It's night when he finally turns his eyes on the sky after months in captivity. The moon is bright and full above his head, stars twinkling as they greet him. There's a heaviness in the air that is often followed by rain. Ressler collapses in the dust and dirt and weeps openly. His rescuers let him. He weeps until he passes out.

When he awakes, he’s lying in a hospital bed with an IV in his hand and a pressure cuff painfully squeezing his arm. Keen and Cooper are standing by the foot of his bed, talking to each other in quiet voices. They hear him wake and turn to him, relief present on their faces.

He tries to ask about Red but the name gets caught in his throat.

They inform him that they got the terrorist and his team, tell him they never stopped looking but that it was Red’s people who ultimately led them to him. He tries not to smile at that but judging by the looks they share, he’s sure he’s failed. They talk to him about the cases Red gave them for a moment before a nurse and doctor enter, a tray of food in the nurse’s hands. At the sight of food, his stomach grumbles loudly. Keen and Cooper leave with a promise to return.

Soup and mashed potatoes with chicken. Standard hospital food but when he tastes it, he knows it’s from Red. He eats until his stomach hurts but when he doesn’t throw up the nurse changes his potassium bag and leaves. The doctor informs him of his injuries, more than Ressler can keep track of, before letting him rest.

He doesn’t rest.

It was day 48, when he still bothered to record the days, that he realized it. That he realized Reddington had stolen a part of him he would forever hold; whether he knew it or not.

The nights they had spent together, exchanging stories in hushed tones, drinks flowing between them, the way Red would look at him as though he was an enigma Red had yet to crack, the faint smiles he would offer when the agent would call it a night. Ressler missed them all more than he would ever admit.

He would also never admit that those memories were what he would clench onto during the nights he would start to lose hope.

Ressler spends another 2 weeks in the hospital before the doctor lets him go home to finish his recovery on his own terms.

He stays away from Red and Red stays away from him.

Until he's been home for a month.

A handful of pain meds for a broken arm that will never heal properly and a bottle of vodka lands Ressler on the mat in front of Red’s door. His head is swimming, vision going blurry as he sways, trying to find his balance.

The door’s open before he knocks and Keen is stepping out, pulling her jacket on. She doesn’t say anything to Ressler, just pats him on the shoulder on her way to her car. Red moves into Ressler’s line of vision and he feels his chest tighten painfully. Before Red can move to allow Ressler inside, Ressler’s surged forward, gripping the front of Red’s shirt to pull him into a kiss. It’s hard and passionate and nothing like the ones in their dreams. Ressler just starts to taste wine and cigars when Red gently pushes him away and the pain in Ressler’s chest worsens.

Well, at least Red is being kind with his rejection.

He stumbles backwards, nearly tripping over his feet. “I’m sorry- I didn’t - I don’t - sorry - leave -” His words come out in a rushed mess and as he tries to back away, he doesn’t hear Red call out after him. But then the pain in his head becomes overwhelming and his knees buckle.

The ground rushes up to meet him but he's out before he hits the ground. 


	2. Day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the chapters are gonna go back and forth between the days after Ressler's been rescued and his recovery, the days when he was imprisoned and the days of the FBI and Red trying to find him.

There’s blood on his hands.

It’s the first thing Ressler notices as his eyes open.

The second is that there is a pounding in his head that makes it hurt to have his eyes open. 

The third is that there's a single dim light bulb hanging above his head

Sitting up, Ressler rubs his eyes with his hands before wincing as the pain worsens. As he tries to get to his feet, he feels something dig into his skin and with a glance down he sees a chain wrapped tightly around his ankle, connected to a brick wall. It’s cutting into his skin, droplets of blood falling to the ground. 

There’s a lot of blood around him. 

Reaching up to his temple, Ressler can feel wet and dried blood in his hair and a growing bump.

An assignment gone wrong. 

A meeting with a member of a suspected terrorist group in a restaurant, the sound of gunshots - he thinks they were from semi-automatic firearms - followed by an explosion. He can remember his skin burning and a bright white light behind his eyelids as he tires to run to his fellow agent and then nothing. 

Not a darkness or a silence but nothing. 

Ressler calls out, quiet and weak. In response, the door to his cell is thrown open, a sudden light pouring in and blinding him with pain. Ressler lets out a loud groan as an armed man enters. He unlocks the chain around Ressler’s ankle before grabbing him by his hair and dragging him outside.

Squinting, he tries to make out the face of the man holding him. White but tanned, bald with a dark beard, one blue eye and one green, a scar running down the left side of his face and a notch in his right eyebrow. 

The man drops him on the cold ground before slamming the but of his gun into the base of his neck. Coughing up blood, Ressler tries to get up on his elbows only to have the man hit him again, harder. 

This time Ressler stays down. 

The man walks around him, crouching in front of him with a smirk.

“Do you know why you’re here Agent Donald Ressler?” The man sneers with an accent Ressler can’t place, tapping the barrel of his gun against Ressler's bloodied temple. “Because you Americans don’t know when to stop. If the FBI had just let us be, you would still be in the wonderful city of DC and all those poor people in the restaurant would still be alive right now. But no, because of you, they are dead.” There’s laughter in his voice. 

He’s enjoying this. 

Ressler tilts his head up, looking at the man through half-closed eyes, and spits a mix of blood and saliva at him. He thinks he’s spat out a tooth as well. 

Grimacing, the man wipes the blood off his cheek with a gloved hand before backhanding Ressler’s face. Gripping Ressler’s chin, he jerks his head up and spits into his face. “You are in no position to try anything or to make a show of power, Agent Ressler. No one knows where you are so believe me when I say that you will die here. And that I will enjoy watching it happen."

The man gets to his feet, stretching his arms above his head, before delivering a swift kick to Ressler’s chest. Curling inward, Ressler goes to hug in his chest only to be kicked again. This one catches him on his fingers and he knows right away that they’ve been broken. 

A third kick and then his ear explodes in pain as a bullet hits the ground by his head. 

He thinks he screams out but his hearing has left him. The man grabs him by the neck of his shirt, Ressler faintly realizes he’s still wearing the same clothes he was in the restaurant only now torn and covered in blood and dirt. He wonders how much is not his blood. 

The man says something that Ressler can’t hear while grinning wickedly down at him and spits once more in his face before hauling him back into the cell. After he rechains Ressler to the wall, he steps out of the cells for a moment and when he reappears he throws something down at him before slamming the cell door shut. There's the sound of lock turning and then silence. 

Ressler grabs what was thrown at him and moves beneath the light bulb. 

**32 Dead, 12 More Critically Injured After Suspected Terrorist Attack**

He tries to read the article but the words merge together until they're just a mess of letters and numbers floating through his mind. Setting the paper down, he pinches his nose and wills his pain to disappear.


	3. First Steps

There's a warm hand on his forehead as he comes too. Soft, uncalloused fingers brushing sweaty hair away from his eyes. 

"Hey Ressler," Agent Keen is standing above him, worry evident on her face. When Ressler moves to try and sit up, she quickly moves her hands to his shoulders, easing him back down. "You had a pretty bad fall, scared me, so you need to sit still."

After a pause, she gives him a sad smile and adds, “It's a good thing Reddington and I were there.”

Ressler blinks wearily, his head pounding. He raises a hand to cover his eyes from the light filling the room. As he does so, the light dim and he can hear someone clear his throat. 

"Thank you for your help Liz but I think Dembe and I can manage Agent Ressler from here. You should get home to your husband and daughter." Red’s voice fills the room.

Keen smiles at Ressler before moving away from the bed. “I’ll see you later Ressler, try to stay off your feet, okay?” 

Red takes Keen's place beside Ressler, a glass of water in hand, his eyes moving over Ressler’s body. “How are you feeling, Agent Ressler?”

Ressler blinks a few times, curling and uncurling his fingers slowly. “I’m not sure. My head does hurt but with the light’s not as bright, it’s getting better.”

“Try to drink some water,” Red says as he angles the straw to Ressler’s mouth, tilting the glass to help him take a sip. “And Liz is right, you need to rest so when I leave the room now so I can bring you food, I don’t want you trying to get out of bed.”

Ressler shakes his head as he takes a sip of water. “I’m fine Red.” He starts to try and sit up again only for Red to grab his shoulder, quickly dropping his hand when Ressler lets out a hiss of pain. 

“You’re clearly not fine, Donald.” Red’s voice leaves no room for argument. “You will not get out of this bed.”

Too exhausted to argue, Ressler lays back down and lets out a soft groan as he feels his muscles loosen, his eyes closing. When he opens his eyes again, it’s to Red gently and carefully shaking his unbroken shoulder. Red’s face looks tired and worn, more so than Ressler ever thinks he’s seen. There’s a bowl in Red’s hand, full of something that smells delicious.

“Do you think you can sit up?” Red asks, his hand still hovering over Ressler’s shoulders. When Ressler nods, Red watches him ease himself up before adjusting his pillow behind his back to keep him supported. “It’s just chicken noodle soup, it should be easy on your stomach. At least easier than the alcohol and pills you were on when you came to my door tonight.”

Ressler feels his face flush at the scolding tone in Red’s voice but Red’s smiling sadly at him. “I’m sorry,” He says though he’s not sure what he’s apologizing for. Red nods, his smile turning slightly more upbeat as he brings a spoon of soup to Ressler’s mouth. “I think I can feed myself, Red.” Ressler’s face feels even hotter.

Raising an eyebrow, Red lets out a small huff. “I highly doubt that Donald. Now eat.” 

Ressler begrudgingly lets Red feed him and while he’d never admit it aloud but he’s appreciative of it because Red is right, with one broken arm and another that he can barely lift, he probably wouldn’t be able to feed himself. 

It doesn’t feel awkward like he thought it would, having an adult, and not just any adult but Red, feeding him and Red doesn’t seem like he’s angry about having to do so. He finishes the bowl surprisingly fast, the soup light in his stomach and accepts a single pain med from Red.

“I’m sorry,” Ressler says as he swallows the pill dryly. “For what I did outside.”

Red readjusts Ressler’s pillow to help him lay back down as he says, “You weren’t in the right state of mind, Donald, you don’t need to apologize.” He goes to cover Ressler with a blanket only to have him grab his wrist and shake his head,

“No, I knew what I was doing, Red and I’m sorry for doing it. I wanted to ki… I wanted to - I wanted to feel something” Ressler lies, sure that his heart is beating loud enough for Red to hear.

Red nods and gently removes Ressler’s fingers from his wrist. “Again, you don’t have to give me an apology, Donald. What you do need, is to rest. You can spend the night here if that’s okay with you. If not, I can drive you home and you can sleep in your own bed.”

Ressler shakes his head, letting out a cough as a sudden tightness expands in his chest. “I don’t want to go home, there’s nothing there anymore.”

Frowning at Resslers’s words, Red’s about to ask him to elaborate but then Ressler’s eyes are closing and he’s yawning. Tucking a blanket around Ressler’s shoulder, Red hears Ressler thank him quietly, a soft groan escaping from his mouth as he rolls onto his unbroken arm. 

As he turns the light off, Red whispers into the dark room “You need to take care of yourself Donald,” Red’s voice cuts through the silence in the room but Ressler’s already asleep. Then closing the door behind him, Red adds, “I can’t afford to lose you again.”


	4. Day 7

1 week. 

It's been a week since the deadly attack. A week since Ressler seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth.

They have him on the security cameras behind the restaurant, unconscious and being dragged between two large black-cladded men where he’s then thrown into the back of a window tinted van. They found the van 5 blocks away, in the parking lot of a church, torched with no sign of Ressler anywhere. None of the surrounding security cameras picked up anything, broken or fake, and there are no eyewitnesses.

He’s in the wind. 

Gone without a trace. 

Not just for the FBI but for Red as well. He goes through all his contacts, searching for a sign that someone knows something but he turns up empty handed. Liz comes to him on the 7th night, a folder on everything the FBI has about the terrorist group Ressler was tracking and their leader tucked under her arm. 

They comb through it, every small detail or note and double-check it through one of Red’s sources. But all they get is information already in the file. 

Les  _ Sangliers Sanguins _ led by Amon, a man no country wants to claim with more blood on his hands than anyone could possibly know. The man who gave the order that led to the death of over 5,000 people 4 months ago. It was the first time anyone had heard of such a thing - to be able to remotely disable and crash a plane.

And it was the act that led to the Ressler going undercover that fateful day in the restaurant. 

Liz was supposed to be the one there but Agnes had a fever that wouldn’t break and Tom was out of the city so she had called Ressler on her way to the children’s hospital and he had agreed to go in her place. She stayed on the phone as she sped down the highway, quickly Ressler in with what wasn’t in the file at her desk. Now, she wonders if he got made because of something she had forgotten to mention. 

She cries this against Red’s shoulder that night. 

“It’s my fault.” 

“No, it’s not.” Red’s voice is firm. “And Ressler would be furious if he knew you were blaming yourself for what happened.”

“We have to get him back,” Liz’s voice is quivering, her hands shaking around a mug of steaming tea Red forces into her hands. “We need to get him back.”

“And we will,” Red promises and he means it. They’ll get Ressler back, in one piece and the same man they know, the same man Red’s comes to begrudgingly admire and respect despite his initial reservations. “We’ll get Ressler back, Liz. No matter what.”

Liz takes a sip of the tea, trying to soothe her nerves. “Why take him though? I mean did they know he is FBI? How could they have known? What are they going to do to him, Red? I thought I had given him all the cues they look for.”

“Liz, you need to calm down; stressing about this won’t help us find him. We’ll find the answers to all these questions in time.” Red replies, grabbing the file she's brought over and takes the photo of the  _ Sangliers Sanguins _ agent they had caught, the one who told about the Reveler's Hour being their meetup location and got the FBI their foot in the door for the meeting. “Him - Callan McCarthy - has Cooper had him interrogated yet?”

Liz nods, the shaking in her hands slowly subsiding as she finishes her tea. “Yeah, 18 hours of agents interrogating him. He’s told us everything he knows, he was one of their explosives experts and he admits that the explosive used in the restaurant was made following one of his designs but he hadn’t made that one. He didn’t know anything about the attack, why it happened or why Ressler was grabbed. And everything else he’s told us is in that file.”

“Maybe we’re missing something,” Red says, refilling Liz’s mug before rereading one of the interrogation transcripts.

“I’ll ask Cooper to let me take a hand at interrogating McCarthy tomorrow, maybe the other agents are just not picking up on something or -”

“Did Mr. McCarthy know when the meeting was?” Red frowns, eyes narrowed on the sheet of paper. 

Liz frowns, biting the inside of her cheek as she thinks it over. “I don’t think so. He got us the initial communication with the American cell but after that we kept him in the dark except when we needed information; we never gave him any information. Why?”

“So who knew when the meeting was happening?” Red says, hoping Liz will connect the dots. 

“Other than the agents involved with the case, you. And the men we were communicating with but as far as they were concerned, I was someone looking to join their cause. They would’ve had no reason to suspect that something was wrong with our meeting, no reason to think that there was law enforcement in the dining room, no reason to set off an explosive with so many of their men around and risk their own safety.” Setting the mug of tea down on the coffee table, Liz rubs a hand over her face as realization starts to set in. “Unless someone was talking to them. Like we were talking to McCarthy. Oh my god, Red, we have a mole.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've posted here in like 2 years; it's good to be back


End file.
